I lived in Chicago for 7 years and it is fantastic...one of the most beautiful, industrious, well educated and hard working cities int he world! No
comparison to Detroit! Tax dollars in Chicago go to make the city better...gardens everywhere...top notch schools....great
infrastructure...outstanding libraries and museums and cultural activities. Chicago is a jewel. (And I am not a democrat..the politicians in Chicago
do a wonderful job)

I agree it is bizarre how they left all those things behind...like the beautiful grand piano, the American flag, there were still candles in the
candle holder. All those books could have been saved...how bizarre to have those police records just left behind????

I can't speak for Detroit, as I have never been there. But I can relate in a sense, as I live in Atlanta, Georgia, where, in some areas, one
wouldn't be able to tell the difference between this city and these areas of Detroit. So, from that perspective I will write...

A post in this thread, which was subsequently removed, tried to paint this issue, the problem of urban decay, as a racial one. To try and breach this
subject, and to do it justice would require, frankly, more time, space, and energy than I am prepared to expend presently. Let us just summarize by
saying that the remnants of Jim Crow and the failed policies which went with it, are largely to blame for making the racial epithets and judgments so
easy for some to throw around. The cultural and socioeconomic implications of decades of racial bias are still being ironed out, even at this late
year - and some of those scars remain, and impact our society.

But be very aware and clear... poverty does not discriminate nor does it show racial preference. As Jim Crow fades we see the truth of this more and
more. One cannot blame the dissolving of the middle class nor the decline of urban landscapes upon such simple demons as race. The realities are much
more complex.

Now to address the OP specifically.

These pictures are truly heartbreaking to me, as I have seen many areas, in my city, decay to this point. And it shames me to say that, here at least,
there is clear motive to be found. Here, when neighborhoods get to these states of abject poverty, it seems that investors suddenly pop-up, acting as
heroes, offering to invest in "urban renewal". This of course is nothing but spin because "urban renewal" means building luxury condominiums and
high end retail spaces. The middle and lower income people who had once relied upon these areas as a home are pushed out and forced to relocate to
accommodate profit margins and the upper class.

Never are these areas revitalized for the class of people who happen to reside in them. Never.

I am sure that many will come along and say "Did you see how shot out that neighborhood was? Of course those people need to move along! They
couldn't even upkeep their own homes." But this would just be a knee jerk reaction that ignores the true way that these areas die.

First the jobs leave and the people who once looked at, and treated these buildings as their "dream homes" were forced to move away. Then the
service industry jobs move in, allowing the working poor to live there. But, by this time, most of the houses have been bought up by investors who are
looking for tenants. Tenants who aren't going to invest what little money they have into repair and upkeep. So the nice houses, controlled by slum
lords, big and small alike, begin to decay,

After awhile the businesses which employ the working poor move because property values are declining in the area and there is more money to be made
elsewhere, and the spiral really gets tight. Now the only people in the area are criminals, the elderly, and those on government assistance, be it
welfare or social security. It does not take long for the criminals to utterly take over. And where there are crack dealers, there are crackheads.
Things exponentially get worse and worse, very quickly...

And, within a couple of years, you get what is shown in the OP. An American tragedy that could have been utterly avoided if we had a Federal
Government with enough spine and honor to tell companies that we do NOT send our jobs to China and India, profit margins be damned.

Throughout centuries, land had always been a prime resource. With land, a man's feet is on terra firma, more so if he owns it. Nations go to war for
it. Humans would starve themselves if they can save enough to purchase it. The rich would kill to evict others off it. It can be use to produce
necessary agricultural foodstuff to feed the world. It can be a base whereby factories can operate from. It can be a profitable metropolis to house
inhabitants on it, etc, etc.

Detroit is a big city, and its asset lays not only in the land mass, but in its infrastructure already paid for and laid out. Most certainly
improvements can be made, but most it will not cost as much as to build from scratch. The most vital aspect is its transportation network, from which
manufactured goods can be transported from one place to another or serve as a midway station where all kinds of other industries can sprout around,
depending on the level of technological progress a society developes.

No doubt it had been a city of auto manufacturing, and now that most of the companies had fled, that land mass can be re-use for other manufacturing
or agricultural needs the modern world would require. All it thinks is creative thinking on the aspect of planners and with the right social or
private funding, Detroit and any other 'decaying' city can be transform into thriving self contained cities offering prosperity and progress for its
inhabitants.

BUT NO, it was left to decay, just as many other cities had been. The planners or private funds operators are not stupid to realise as what me - an
insignificant and nobody ordinary joe - to know, if not, they would have been far far ahead of me in terms of intelligence to put such land to good
use.

They do not do so for they WANT those cities in decay, so that its inhabitants would lose hope, give up, sell their lands of their ancestors enmass,
at lowest possible prices and become the homeless in other thriving metropolis.

Once that is achieved, the planners and the private funds operators will move in, with GLOBALISATION allowed, bring in cheap labour to rebuild those
decaying cities, house them and use them as slave labour for the next generation of technological enterprise that will happen in the evolution of
mankind, as it had been for centuries.

Once again, the mega rich will own the land and become super mega rich. This is no fantasy, but a reality that had happened since the 16th century in
Europe, where bankers ended up owning more land than any soveriegn king of their lands.

It had happened before, and it is happening today, and will do so into the future unless we the masses put a stop to it and create our own metropolis
as one people instead of depending on corrupted legislators to do the job for us.

The indomitable will of humans lay in all of us, as it had been for the forefathers, whom were only farmers and yet with their own blood sweat and
toil created USA out of nothing at all. Our backs are to the wall now, and the only way left is forward.

I dont believe in socialism or the re-distribution of wealth. However, our government is borrowing and taxing us into oblivion to spend $500 million
a day occupying Iraq and this is the state of America...

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Great Lakes are the largest source of fresh water in our hemisphere. The Jesse Ventura show, Conspiracy
Theory, spelled out how the water in the Great Lakes was extrememly valuable and powerful companies all over the world are trying to source that water
for themselves.....Michigan is the home of this bottling operation. Get a big city like Detroit out of the way is a good start.

If someone were to be conspiratorially inclined... After the state and local property taxes have been all but erased. After the city and state has run
their course and nothing has worked. A multi-national corporation might drop in as a savior and bulldoze a few blocks (on the state's dime, can
anyone say "jobs initiative"), set up their own perimeter and security force, build a third world sweatshop and have at it with the Michigan
unemployment rate forecast to reach 15% in 2011. A willing slave population. A modern and far bleaker version of say the Hershey, Pennsylvania style
“company town”. Nah, not in America.

The second video hit home man... Reminded me of where I grew up. It's not quite this bad, but CLOSE! The shelled out homes, the shopping cards,
roving gangs of Blacks... That sort of likeness.

Anyways, this is the DIRECT result of the following:
- Unions pushing companies away.
- Liberal "Gimmie a Handout' Democrats
- HIGH taxes
- Collapse of the infrastructure due to reliance on the Government Hand Out.

I don't even think this city is savable! It looks too far gone. It is time to go out and raze the entire area! It is nothing but a burden on tax
money. Cut the water. Cut the power. Cut EVERYTHING, that runs into that area and move the residents out; to where, who knows...

I wonder if the Gov try's to step in and "Help"... Those are the scariest words in the English Language!
"I'm from the Government and I'm here to help". I do think if this gets more attention, CUE, the FEMA Camps. This would be a perfect reason to use
them!

So long as you had electricity, telephone, internet connection, and security for your staff, you could take over the top floor of one of those
buildings, and.. heck, you could probably buy the whole building and rennovate it!

Too bad there isn't a maverick businessman to be found anywhere anymore, now that the dumbing down operation has kicked into high gear.

It must really suck being an American I would imagine. We really feel for ya'll.

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